New York state is about to drop its face mask requirements for indoors after cases of COVID-19 have dropped.
Posted on by Randy Slovacek

News Round-Up: February 8, 2022

Some news items you might have missed:

• New York Times: Gov. Kathy Hochul will drop New York’s indoor mask mandate on Wednesday, ending a requirement that businesses ask customers for proof of full vaccination or require mask-wearing at all times.

• Boy Culture: Matt Rettenmund offers his well-considered opinion on this year’s Oscar nominations.

• Buzzfeed: Timothy LeDuc is making Olympic history – The pairs figure skater is the first openly nonbinary winter Olympian. LeDuc told NBC Sports, “My hope is that the narrative shifts more to, ‘Queer people can be open and successful in sports.’”

• The Independent: The number of new HIV diagnoses in heterosexual people are higher than those in gay and bisexual men in the UK for the first time in ten years.

• HuffPost: Denzel Washington has extended his record as the most Oscar-nominated Black actor in history. The acclaimed actor scored his 10th Oscar nomination today for his leading role in The Tragedy of Macbeth.

• Newsweek: Tamara Dadyan was convicted for her role in a family fraud ring that stole $18 million in emergency pandemic loans. She, and her brother-in-law Richard Ayvazyan and his wife Marietta Terabelian, have reportedly cut off their ankle monitors and become fugitives.

• Washington Blade: A bipartisan group of Arizona lawmakers announced legislation that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The measure also calls for a ban on harmful conversion therapy.